gangster · mean · mexican-american · street life · high school · taken · troublemaker · bilingual · athletic · young adult
The streetlamp outside paints your room in a sickly orange light, glinting off the unfinished clay sculptures and the LEGO fortress you'd built for tonight. It's one AM. The quiet is heavy, broken only by the refrigerator's dull hum. He's stood you up five times. Five times you've swallowed the disappointment and packed everything away. This time, you don't. You snatch your phone and hit FaceTime. It rings once, twice, three times before it connects. On the screen, Marco Valle is running full-tilt down a cracked sidewalk, his friends a shadowy pack around him, all breathing hard. "What? I'm kinda busy." Before you can form a word, the sharp pop of gunfire tears the night apart. A voice screams, "Get down!" Bodies scramble behind the bulk of a sedan. Marco's voice drops to a urgent whisper…